1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to liquid crystal display monitors and, more specifically, to a liquid crystal display monitor that discharges internally generated heat.
2. Background Art
With the increasing amounts of information that aremanaged and displayed using computers, the development of higher quality monitors has been an area of extensive research. This research has led to improvements in the miniaturization of internal components, in the reduction of monitor thickness, and in the quality of picture displayable by amonitor. Today, older monitors, such as the heavy and bulky cathode ray tube (CRT), are being replaced with compact liquid crystal display monitors (LCD) monitors that are designed using a combination of LCD and semiconductor techniques.
A LCD monitor may be constructed using: an LCD display unit, a stand unit, and a stand-display interface. The LCD display unit's front and rear housings are assembled into a single housing containing both an LCD and a printed circuit board (PCB). The stand unit supports the display unit on a support surface and includes a plurality of connectors for power and signal cables. During operation many circuit parts on the PCB give off heat. Unless this internally generated heat is removed from the LCD monitor, the heat generating circuit parts that are mounted on the monitor's PCB will undergo increased wear and the lifespan of the monitor will be reduced. Different techniques have been developed to discharge heat from a monitor as shown, by way of example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,952,925 to Haastert entitled Projectable Passive Liquid-Crystal Flat Screen Information Centers, U.S. Pat. No. 5,252,955 to Davis entitled Liquid-Crystal Display Unit for Electronic Directory, U.S. Pat. No. 5,583,529 to Satou entitled Portable Apparatus Having a Flat Panel Tvpe Display Unit, U.S. Pat. No. 5,432,526 to Hyatt entitled Liquid Crystal Display Having Conductive Cooling, U.S. Pat. No. 5,606,341 to Auguilera entitled Passive CPU Cooling and LCD Heating for a Laptop Computer, U.S. Pat. No. 5,163,870 to Cooper entitled Protective Dust Cover for Computer Components, U.S. Pat. No. 4,751,872 to Lawson, Jr. entitled Ventilation System, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,684,674 entitled Circuit Board Mounting Brackets With Convective Air Flow Apertures.
I have observed that most monitors rely on naturally occurring convection to discharge internally generated heat. This method has become less effective as the size of monitors has been reduced along with the corresponding amount of space inside the monitor housing. I expect that a monitor that effectively discharges internally generated heat will increase the lifespan, allow further miniaturization, increase reliability, and increase the market competitiveness of monitors.